The Glory of Kings - 6th Edition Rules
=CHANGES TO THE GAME!= Movement rates Because of the need for seasonal fodder for cavalry and baggage horses, the strategic movement rates of armies is effected by these restrictions: In Europe, North America, Siberia, Korea, and Japan strategic movement rates are halved from January to April, and in July and December. For everywhere else strategic rates are halved from March to November. In other words, in Europe, North America, Siberia, Korea, and Japan the best time to march is May and June, or between August and November. Elsewhere the best time is December to February. Ship sailing rates vary wildly depending on the intervention of storms, becalmed weather, and also very much depends on seasonal winds and which way they are blowing. Supplying An Army Method 1. By living off the land Living off the land can only be done in certain areas, which are: England (not other British Isle areas) Germany (excluding Austria) Flanders-Brabant The United Provinces Italy (including Sicily, excluding Sardinia) India (including Kandy but excluding Afghan lands) Japan To have an army live off the land, when ordering it to move on the order sheet (or just under your typed movement orders if playing by email) under ‘supply’ write ‘living off the land'. The army will take 5,000 tons of grain from the area in which it starts its movement. GRAIN SHORTAGE! Each time supplies are taken by an army like this a grain shortage of 5,000 tons will impact the region in question. It has been taken off the civil populace which means they don't have it any more (to state the blindingly obvious!). To avoid eventual loss of life due to famine the authority controlling the area must therefore eventually find replacement grain to avoid this disaster happening. As you can imagine, living off the land is not considered a friendly act and historically civilians in extremis were known to resist with violence such attempts at foraging. Method 2. By using grain stocks If you have grain in your possession then it can be used to supply an army starting off its movement within your territory, 5,000 tons of grain being deducted each time this is done. Write against the army movement order 'using grain stocks'. If you move an army outside of your territory it can still be supplied in this manner if a Supply Patrol of at least ten barges or four liners is in the same trade area as the army and able to reach both it and your own territory. For example, a French army operating in Italy can be supplied by a Levant Supply Patrol (since a Levant, or in other words Mediterranean area, patrol is connected with both Italy and the south of France, the home country for the army). To take another example, a French army in India would be able to draw supplies via an India Supply Patrol if, for example, Pondicherry is French territory and grain has already been shipped over to that colony from France. ARMY SUPPLY LIMIT. No more than 15,000 tons of grain may accompany an army or group of armies marching together at any one time on account of the limit of waggons, carts, mules &c., necessary to heave it about. An army formation choosing to take grain with it will move at a slow rate on account of the baggage trayne it has carrying the grain. If more grain than this is to hand because armies link up, or are just together, then it will either have to be left behind or one army will have to move off on its own (another army can then follow it the turn after, for example). Supplying A Fleet For a fleet to be in supply it must have grain on board its ships (using 5,000 tons of grain each time an order is issued). This can be taken on board at a port in any friendly territory where such grain is available. No more than 5,000 tons of grain can be carried by one ship, except liners can carry up to 15,000 tons each. An Army Or Fleet Not In Supply Often proper supply arrangements can't be made, this is a fact of life in the 18th century so please don't get stressed about this aspect of military life! It is normal; sometimes players will have stacks of spare grain to hand, more often they'll have none at all in the right place. In these circumstances it is likely that attrition will be suffered by the entire fleet or army and the sick list (SL) will be introduced or increase. No doubt officers will still make what arrangements they can to stave off disaster so starvation won't suddenly occur, instead you can imagine they are muddling through and making their own arrangements for the men of their regiment or ship's company as best they can! The Sick List Partial damage to units is specified by a sick list (‘SL’). This ranges from SL#1 (level 1) upwards. The higher the level, the worse the situation for the troops or ships. It is possible that some units or ships will become total losses and ceased to exist even without a sick list, for example land forces may fall apart and desert or be struck down by disease or casualties to such a degree that they can no longer able to operate as a viable force. Ships may be scuttled, suffer rotten timbers or their crews may have deserted, abandoning them on a beach or setting them alight, or perhaps the ships have been lost at sea due to a severe storm or lost due to damage sustained in battle. Damage which is sustained by these or for other reasons such as most supply difficulties will however not destroy a unit or ship, but will give it - or the formation to which it belongs - a sick list. So, attrition can be suffered for a variety of reasons, including not being properly supplied, adverse weather conditions, and enemy action (such as sieges, raids, battles, blockades). Units and ships can be either effectively destroyed or suffer partial loss and end up with a sick list against it. To give more examples; the sick list level, whether it be for a ship or unit, can be used to reflect damage received in battle. A ship sunk will be an obvious total loss, but one which takes very severe damage may be shown as still afloat but with a high SL level. Encountering a storm could however then finish the vessel off! There are no safe SL levels - the higher they go, the more danger the ship or unit, fleet or army, garrison or patrol, is in, and the less effective it shall be in action! While usually patrols and garrisons do not develop sick lists, it certainly can happen as part of a siege or encounter, or a whole host of other difficulties which may arise. How to recover! *For land forces the SL level can be improved by ordering 'rest in camp' (repeating this each game turn until the sick list is no more or down an 'acceptable' level). *For ships the SL level can be improved by ordering 'repair damage' (again, repeating as necessary). In both instances there is no cost involved, but for rest or repair to stand a chance of success the unit or ship involved must not do anything else that game turn. Sentries cannot be posted, for example, by units resting, and ships must be at anchor! So you can see that units and ships while recovering from sickness have their guard down, making them much more vulnerable than usual to hostile enemy action and indeed to hostile weather events if in the open. Repair Yards Ships ordered to 'repair damage' and having use of a repair yard can recover up to 2 SL levels a turn rather than the usual 1 level. To attempt this the order must be given to 'repair damage at the Chatham repair yard' (or whatever place the yard and ships happen to be located at). Rest & Recuperation Land forces ordered to 'rest in camp' when in a town or city with a population of 10,000+ can recover up to 2 SL levels a turn rather than the usual 1 level. To attempt this the order must be given to 'rest and recuperate in Munich' (or whatever place the town and forces happen to be located at). Again it must be stressed that recovery is never guaranteed, for example if the townsfolk are hostile to your army then the troops may not recover at all! Magazines A fleet or army which has been in action may have the legend ‘low on gunpowder’ appear. This will hamper its effectiveness in action until dealt with. You do this by ordering the fleet or army to ‘replenish gunpowder from the London Magazine’ (or wherever you have one). If the Magazine in question is a long way from the current location of the fleet or army, or cut off due to weather conditions or hostile action, then the replenishment may well fail or be delayed. Magazines cost £20,000 each and can be opened in any town, taking 6 months (game turns) to create. Logistics Corps If you form a Logistics Corps of 1,000 supply officers, who must be graduates of an academy of administration, logistics, or supply, and attach it to an army then the amount of grain that army may have with it increases from 15,000 tons to 20,000 tons. There is no limit regarding how many Logistics Corps you may have. General Staff & Delayed Orders If you form a General Staff of 1,000 staff officers, who must be graduates of a staff college, then army orders may be acted on more quickly. Otherwise orders issued in Moscow to an army in for example Italy may not be acted on until next turn. However, where orders have been issued but not yet acted on they will still be listed against your army or fleet so you know that they are in the pipeline! This can potentially happen anyway, but efficiency is increased when using a General Staff (write ‘via General Staff’ when issuing orders to benefit - however, if you do this and don’t have a General Staff the orders may be cancelled or delayed even longer than normal!). A staff college is an academy (costing £50,000 to open and counting as an insitute for annual upkeep purposes). There is no benefit having more than one General Staff. Recruits If you have recruits in the same area in which an army, fleet, or garrison happens to be, then you can ‘spend’ 1,000 recruits per army, fleet, patrol or garrison in exchange for improving its sick list. If only some units or ships in the formation are suffering from sickness, the cost is still 1,000 recruits. This gives a better chance of a faster recovery, possibly allowing two levels of SL to be recovered in a single game turn (usually you would only recover one level per turn). To do this issue this order to the army, fleet or garrison; ‘recover using 1,000 recruits’. When in another person’s territory and suffering from sickness, you can issue an order to ‘recruit foreign volunteers’. This costs £10,000. If it works then the person in whose territory your army is situated will lose 1,000 recruits and again you may see your SL recover more quickly - assuming the volunteers are forthcoming that is (the order may fail). In both instances the force in question still has to rest for the entire game turn to stand a chance of success. Final word on grain Grain risks going off if not stored in either a grain silo, a granary, or aboard a ship. Typically when not held in such conditions it will go off after six months (or a year for grain from hardy seed). Other major changes compared to previous editions Change orders, otherwise known as military change orders, which were used to restrict military changes have been abolished. Restrictions may still operate in practice since the workload Agema can cope with is restricted so if you try and do too much not all orders will be completed. Agema also takes the view that real-life ministries are limited in relation to what they can deal with over a month, and this may also prevent all orders being done. How much you can get done is variable but experience will guide you in relation to this. There is no fixed guide other than experience, but being concise and bulletpointing your orders can help. Other factors can bring in limitations, such as the personality of your ministry staff and officers in the field, or whether you actually have any, and how if at all they interpret (or misinterpret) your orders. These new (6th edition) rule changes are quite major in scope. They replace all previous supply/change order rules with the aim of being simpler while allowing logistics to play their proper role in campaigns and rewarding good play. Guidance and problems: currently running games and the change-over In currently running games there will inevitably be some discrepencies. Stores are no longer in use, but players who have them can 'cash them in' for 5,000 tons of grain per store (or these stores can be used straight in lieu of grain). Please note this is in order not to disadvantage those of you who have stores, but once used they cannot be replaced at all. Once all stores are used they will no longer feature in the game, and this seemed to us to be the least painful way of assimilating the new rules across all running games with a minimum of fuss and bother! In Game #7 only units which have lost men under the old logistics rules have been brought back to full strength but have an 'SL' number allocated to them instead where Agema judges it applicable. Concluding remarks! Agema can't stress strongly enough that not being in proper supply is NOT a disaster but quite normal for the period! As a tip, the best thing to do is to move your army or fleet to where you want it to go, then allow it to rest. This builds 18th century inertia into the game slowing action down. Players, quite naturally, want to charge around doing everything at once, and with all the fuzzy logic of postmodernism and the telecommunication age cannot see why not. Real life of course involves people, committees, muddle, delay, incompetence and a whole host of reasons 'why not', especially in earlier eras when communication delays could be tremendously long. The rules do however allow you to act rashly and charge forces about all over the place to a certain extent, but extended sick lists may well be the pay-off! The game still allows you to get in a tremendous muddle if you aren't systematic in your approach (slow and steady is usually better than trying to do everything at once which as in real life tends to end up anything other than what you intended!). That said... Please be aware that unlike earlier versions of the game now movement orders issued in say France for a fleet in India is likely to be delayed by a game turn or more, again extending realism without introducing another layer of complication. Fortunately you'll know what's happening since the order will be written against the fleet in question in your list so you'll know it's delayed but going to happen. Abolishing the change orders rule, which has been a mainstay of the game system for many years now, is being done with some trepidation. It makes things simpler, for sure, but risks drowning Agema under an avalanche of extra work to do! To be blunt if you find not enough of your orders are being done and you're unsatisfied please either try writing them more concisely or even better relax and sign up for the extra orders game option rather than complaining about it, thanks. That sounds brutally honest and I guess it is: the game is run and designed to allow players to do a great deal, but where this involves more than usual work there is a real-life cost. The rules relating to what is a 'safe' sick list are deliberately a bit vague, but as a rough guide Agema will state that levels SL#1 and SL#2 are not too dangerous, but SL#3 and upwards really require attention. Another hint is that is you have a sick list for an army and meet an army with a worse sick list your troops will probably fight better than the other side! This guide can be taken to lead you over this in a bit more detail: *SL#1-2: usual levels of sickness often encountered by forces in transit or in the field and not too worrisome. Units on campaign will often be at these levels. *SL#3: also a usual level, but somewhat more serious in that performance in action is likely to suffer, as is the watchfulness of sentries. *SL#4-5: sickness has reached serious levels and is severely impacting the ability of the force to function. *SL#6-8: the force remains intact, but is pretty useless militarily, while recovery is still possible so are mass desertions, mutiny and even rebellion! *SL#9+: oh dear, the force is in a real mess, desertions are probable rather than possible and even moving will be problematic! Individual units and ships can still be lost due to enemy action, bad weather and the like; the sickness level governs the condition of an entire force in most cases, but can be applied to individual ships or units of troops. The system is set up with a bias to encourage you to move armies and fleets or at least naval squadrons rather than lots of little detachments (incidentally a squadron is usually a naval force of less than ten ships, a fleet is one of ten of more vessels in naval parlance). This is deliberate; you can of course move smaller detachments as for formations, but their basic supply requirements (in relation to grain) are classed the same as for a field army. Why? To discourage the splitting of forces into lots of small detachments which administratively from a game perspective tends to be more difficult to manage, and basically because this system encourages historical play (if you try and move an army a regiment at a time your staff are likely to throw up in their hands in despair and not get much done, but with the scrapping of the change orders rule it is possible, so this goes some way to balance that out. If you move 20 regiments separately and some how manage to supply them all you've used up 100,000 tons of grain, but have them in a single army you only use up 5,000 tons, again in the interests of encouraging historical play). These new rules are actually much simpler than the old rules, and now allow you to attempt to recover from sickness or damage in a wide range of circumstances. For example, a naval squadron can rest at an anchor in a sheltered bay away from a port, or a field army can remain on a field in the middle of nowhere, put up tents and just rest. The down side is that while under orders to recover your squadron or army becomes extremely vulnerable if enemy forces are encountered (it should also be pointed out that an attempt to recover from sickness is just that - an attempt, recovery is never guaranteed). Finally, a word about the Honour score. How many formations can move and how many units are effective within each formation or force is no longer limited by your Honour score. Rather, if you have a low Honour then this will impact the general morale of your armed forces, while if you have high Honour they will generally have higher morale (although individual units and ship's companies can be noted as having particularly high or low morale separate from this). It is possible, dear reader, that by now you're having kittens over some aspect of the new rules! There's really no need, the main thing to remember is if you have grain it can be employed to feed formations, and if you don't well it can't but just move them anyway. Just remember after they attract a sick list to order them to rest when the opportunity arises! RDW. More Notes On The New Delayed Movement Orders System... This no doubt needs some more explanation, so here is a guideline: Typically (but the system is deliberately flexible) orders you issue to forces in the continent which contains your home country will be acted on the same month. However, where the forces are in stationed in an opposite part of the continent, unless you have a General Staff then they are still likely to be delayed being implemented by a game turn. For example, Russian forces in western and southwestern Europe will have orders delayed unless you have an operational General Staff. The continent 'regions' for this purpose go something like this: *Europe - orders take a turn to reach another side of the continent (unless you have a General Staff in Europe), or to the Americas, or Africa; it takes two turns for orders to reach India or the Far East. *Americas - orders take a turn to reach another side of the continent (unless you have a General Staff in the Americas), or to Europe, the Far East, or Africa; it takes two turns for orders to reach India. *Africa - orders take a turn to reach another side of the continent (unless you have a General Staff in Africa), or to Europe, India, or the Americas; it takes two turns for orders to reach the Far East. *India - orders take a turn to reach another side of the continent (unless you have a General Staff in India), or to Africa, or the Far East; it takes two turns for orders to reach India or the Americas. *Far East - orders take a turn to reach another side of the continent (unless you have a General Staff in the Far East), or to India, or the Americas; it takes two turns for orders to reach Africa or Europe. However, other than using a General Staff to speed up communications within the continent containing your main home country, there is another way of speeding matters up generally; the Despatch Boat Patrol. Despatch Boat Patrol A Despatch Boat Patrol can be set up and must consist of at least three cruisers (frigate or smaller). Each patrol is allocated to a region from the list above. Now providing you have such a patrol for each linked region through which the orders must travel, orders can make faster progress to their destination. To issue such orders you must write on your order sheet that they are being sent 'via Despatch Boat Patrol'. So if you run Venice you must have such a patrol in Europe as well as one in Africa to use the service to get orders to say a naval squadron stationed at Mozambique, for example. The patrols must all be operational the game turn before the orders are issued via them, and the patrols must remain operational until the orders are delivered. The use of such linked Despatch Boat patrols usually reduces transit times of orders by a game turn, but they do not help speed up communications to the other side of the same continent in which you have your home country (only a General Staff can do that). Category:Rules & Guides